Every buyer wants to hear your story.
Your story is unique. It should be informative, entertaining … maybe even inspirational.
Who are you? What are you selling? When can they get it? Where can they get it? Why is it better? How does it solve their problem? How much does it cost?
Five things to keep in mind when you tell your story:
Do you know your story? Have you spent some time looking for it? No two stories are the same. Everybody has a story; if your story sounds boringly familiar then: a) you’re not very imaginative or b) you’re a plagerist. You have a great story to tell, take some time to find it first!
What are you passionate about? When you’re passionate about something it becomes your top priority, an obsession that can become almost all-consuming. New media visionary Doug Kaye has a great saying, “Success is born from passion.” Passion narrows our focus from hundreds of opportunities down to the critical few. Find your passion and you’ll find your story.
People remember great stories. Think back to moments when you’ve listened to other people. When you went to re-tell the experience, what did you remember most? Facts … features … details? No, you remembered stories. Stories entertain, inspire, and educate. As children we grow up learning about the world around us through stories.
Capture the transformative power of a story and use it to educate your buyer. Think of your story like a movie script. What is your logline? (For theideamechanic it’s “I help people sell.”) What hook will grab your buyer’s attention? Your buyer is the protagonist, but who (or what) is the antagonist in your story? What catalyst that drives your buyer towards the main event?
Once you know what is in your story, you need to bring it to life. How you write your story depends on how long you have to tell it. Sometimes it is a short story – a VERY short story – like an elevator pitch. What if someone asked you “So what do you do?” What would you say? Could you say it in 5 seconds? In 50 seconds?
Sometimes you will have more than one chance to tell your story, in fact you may have as long as One Thousand and One Nights.
How you write your story also depends on where and how it will be consumed by your buyer. Will you work it into a one-on-one conversation or will you talk in an auditorium of 2,000 people? Will it be live or will it be recorded and consumed later like a podcast? Build your story first, then write it to fit the situation. Even though the environment changes, your story will not.
How do you tell your story? You could use a brochure … but using only print and pictures to tell your story can be an emotionally bankrupt proposition. You could tell everyone face-to-face but you don’t have enough hours in the day. Ideally you should be telling your story 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to everyone who will listen.
Storytelling with audio or video used to require expensive production studios and broadcast radio or TV networks for distribution. Now with digital media and the Internet, your story can be in front of 300+ million people in minutes. Every week, every day, or every hour you can have a personal conversation with your buyer – any place and any time they choose.
Not only is the story of Jesus of Nazareth perhaps the greatest story ever told, but Jesus himself was a master storyteller. His parables live today through the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the Bible. The world hung on every word from broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow as he depicted the scenes in London during World War II. In the 1950′s Murrow created This I Believe.
Jimmy Buffett can take you to the “Port of Indecision” (somewhere Southwest of Disorder) with his lyrics and musical stories, not to mention the ones he writes. John Lasseter rose to fame with Pixar’s Toy Story and continues climbing. Lesser known to many, radio talent Tony Kahn will always be thanked by millions of listeners for his WGBH Morning Stories podcasts.
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